Dynamic simulation analysis of a construction and demolition waste management model under penalty and subsidy mechanisms

Abstract The purpose of this study is to address the problems associated with construction and demolition waste management, also known as “nowhere to dump”. Where the ratio of recycled and reused waste is lower, the paper introduced a penalty and subsidy mechanism and established a new model. Firstly, the system dynamics approach was used to calculate a reasonable penalty range. Secondly, the simulation results demonstrated that the original model needed to introduce a subsidy to encourage recycling and reusing materials in order to improve it; sensitivity analysis was conducted to acquire a reasonable value for this subsidy under a different combination of conditions. Finally, through simulation and analysis for different combinations of penalty, waste disposal charges (WDC), and subsidy scenarios, we arrived at the following main conclusions: (1) Penalties can greatly reduce the amount of illegally dumped waste (AIDW). (2) Subsidies can vastly increase the amount of recycled and reused waste (ARRW), for example, the simulation results showed the ARRW increase by approximately 310.41% in 2020 when the subsidy is equal to 40 yuan/t. Thus, this study concludes that some penalty, WDC, and subsidy combination schemes can effectively alleviate the problems associated with construction and demolition waste management.